


Together

by edourado



Series: Kastle [73]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Domestic, Drabbles, F/M, Fluff, Quarantine, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24409987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: The makings of a home.---Little chapters about our favorite couple and how they make it through this new reality together
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Series: Kastle [73]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/910791
Comments: 72
Kudos: 101





	1. Lockdown

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing since mid 2019. Terrified and very insecure.  
> Hope this pleases.  
> Stay safe and, if you can, stay home.

The thing that gets to him most is that she was always so happy to see him.

Always, every damn time, and that happiness just did something to him, made him swear to himself all over again that he’d be worthy of that smile. 

And that anxiety from before, all that fear of danger and his demons and his own reservations, she slowly worked them away, little by little, every time she turned her head towards him and smiled, happy he was there. 

“No, no, don’t go”, she asked, arms tight around him when he said he had to go back to his own place, he needed clean clothes, he needed to air the space out, he needed to see if the building was still standing, but she never wanted to let him go. “Stay here, just one more night.”

“You said that three nights ago”, he replied, his own arms around her, hands running up and down her back, and yeah, of course he was reluctant to leave. 

“Well, because this is ridiculous, don’t you think?” She leaned back, all blue eyes and the air of someone who’s right. “Why don’t you just… Stay here?”

Frank looked back at her, almost saying those words, that she couldn’t be serious, she couldn’t actually want him in her space with her all the time, but she blinked up at him, eyes determined, and her hands caressed his face. 

“You’re here all the time, anyway. I don’t like it when you leave, you’re spending money on an horrible place you don’t even like, why not just do us both a favor and just stay here?”

“You sure you want that?” He tried, surprised again at how deep his feelings for her actually ran. “Someone messing up your place?”

“You’re the neatest person I have ever met in my entire life”, she argued. 

“You’d have to share your closet.”

“Not a problem. You’ll just might have to cram your shoes a little, but I don’t have that many clothes.”

“I don’t have that many shoes”, he blurted out, out of nowhere, and she smiled so big it made him smile, too. 

“There you go”, and a kiss, like they had just settled it, and then she was letting go of him and walking towards the closet. “I’ll go with you. Well get the rest of your things, and you’ll tell the landlord that you’ll be giving the place up.”

“Karen.”

She looked at him, unfolding the jeans in front of her. 

“Give me one good reason why you should keep that place. Just one.”

She did have a point. It was a shitty, shitty place, the walls thinner than paper, and he was never there anymore. He never wanted be to be there anymore.

Ever since he saw Karen again, killed Pointdexter to save her life, and ever since she told him all about Fisk and his personal grudge, he was reluctant to leave her side. Even more so ever since that first night, when he finally stopped fighting and decided to give them a chance, give himself a chance, it was so difficult for him to leave her, now. 

“Plus”, she completed, fastening her jeans and walking back towards him. “I thought we both agreed that it’s safer for me with you. Right?”

“Right”, he agreed, closing his eyes when she walked past him with a hand on his face, a quick caress to settle the subject. 

“Alright, then. If you must pay rent, you can split the one from this place with me.”

Frank smiled and watched her pick up her purse. 

Hours later, on the way back, his car loaded with the rest of his clothes, books, and the little other possessions he had, she looked at him and said she wanted a burger. 

“With beer. And something sweet after.”

They ate their burgers leaning against the hood of his car, cold beers to wash it down, looking at a bridge they had flirted and then argued by, once upon a time, when she had to put flowers on her window to reach him. She ate double stuff Oreos on the way home.

“I buy Oreos in bulk, by the way”, she informed him after insisting he ate one, too. “Keep that in mind.”

“Yes, ma’am”, he replied, kissing her knuckles, her fingertips coated with crumbs.

It took almost no time at all to put his things away. She quickly reorganized her clothes to make room for his, put on her planner to buy some shelves for her shoes, because his had to be crammed after all. Most of his guns were in the… “Office” he and David kept, but the ones he kept with him found suitable places around her - their - apartment: on his nightstand drawer, behind the cleaning supplies in the bathroom cupboard, a special knife behind the cutlery door. 

Books were organized among hers, she let him do that. His computer sat a little behind hers on the desk, he let her do that. His coat hung neatly by hers on the hook by the door, and she grazed a finger over the sleeve. 

“This lives here, now”, she said, admiring the coats hanging side by side as if they were more that just two coats hanging side by side. She turned to him, smiling simply, and then back to the door. “Oh, one more thing!” 

Frank watched as she opened the door, walked outside to the other side of the hall, and stood on tiptoes to reach the edge of the electric panel door. 

“Your key!”, she said, smiling again, closing the door behind her, walking to him and handing him a key, somewhat ceremoniously. “We can get a new one made later, but for now, you get this one.”

Frank looked at the key sitting on the palm of his hand. It was rusty, stained on the base, it felt rough to the touch, but it worked just fine. With a small sigh, he looked at her.

“Guess its oficial, then?”

She nodded once, with vigor, and her hair tumbled from behind her ear to graze her cheek. “Yes, sir”, she confirmed, pushing the strands off her face again. “No turning back, now.”

They fell asleep on the couch watching TV, and when he woke up, she was curled up against him, and the TV showed a message that asked “are you still watching?”

Usually, this would be the time he would use to sneak out, while she was sleeping and couldn’t talk him - kiss him hug him whisper him seduce him undress him - into staying. Usually, he would place a soft soft soft kiss on the top of her head and tiptoe to the door. 

This time, there was nowhere else he needed to be, no apartment he needed to go back to, he was home. For the very first time since he woke up in a hospital bed with a bullet wound on his head, he had a home. And it had nothing at all to do with the address. 

Karen had been his home for much, much longer than he realized.

Turning the TV off, Frank ran his hand on Karen’s arm, touching his lips to her forehead when she stirred. 

“Let’s go to bed”, he whispered, and she stretched and rubbed her eyes before she got up. He put his arms around her while they walked to the bedroom, the floor was cold under their feet.

He hugged her to him again once the covers were over them, and she settled more comfortably against him. 

There were, still, a million reasons in his head of why he should not do this. Each of them getting weaker by the minute, and her skin against his own skin strengthening the argument that this, right here, was home. 

Period. 

.:.

It began the very next day. 

They had all heard about the virus, a nasty little thing that was making its way, fast, over the world. 

David had called to invite Frank to stay at the house with him, Sarah and the kids, and he was touched, because Leo shouted that she could show him all the new books she got, and when Frank, after thanking them, declined the offer, he insisted. 

“You sure? I mean, no offense, man, but your apartment really sucks. You’re in more danger isolating there than at an airport, I’d say.”

Frank chuckled.

“You’re not wrong”. He looked over at Kren, who was sitting on her desk, on the phone with either Nelson or Murdock. “That’s why I gave it up yesterday.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I moved.”

“You moved? Where did you- oh! Did you- did you move in with Karen?”

He could hear David’s excitement over the phone, and he rolled her eyes? But his mouth curved in a smile anyway. 

“Yeah.”

“No shit! Wow, man, way to go! I’m happy for you. For you both, really. HEY SARAH!”

There was a whole deal after that, where Sarah took the phone to express how happy she was for him, and they both filled Frank with questions, and he only answered because he owed that family a whole lot.

In the end, Sarah gave him a bunch of instructions he didn’t need on how to take care of himself, how to properly wash his hands and not buy too much toilet paper, they sent their love to Karen, and then he hung up. 

A few minutes later, Karen also hung up, and they looked at each other. 

“Regretting that decision yet?” He asked, only half joking. She furrowed her brows in confusion.

“What decision?”

“That key you gave me.”

She clicked her tongue and got up from her chair. 

“I’m happy we did it yesterday. All we have to do now is some grocery shopping, a run to the drug store, and hope this thing runs its course quickly.” She sat next to him on the couch, her body turned towards him. “If you weren’t here already, I’d be calling you right about now. This social distancing thing…” She leaned into him, her lips grazing his softly. Frank closed his eyes. “I’d much rather do it with you.”

Frank smiled, and leaned in further to kiss her properly. 

“Yeah.”

He was home. 

Period.


	2. A good day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am one of those people that love rainy days. The water and the wind and the clouds. Tens across the board.

What constitutes a beautiful day? 

She was always seeing people in social media posting bright sunsets by the water, sunny mornings at a park. The few group chats she was in always had people praising a warm day, celebrating the arrival of summer or spring, that one hiker that had moved to LA sharing videos he took on top of hills and mountains. 

Karen herself would look at the river when she would go on the occasional jog, the skyline reflected on the water, sun shining bright behind clouds, or doing its solo act, turning the sky bright, bright blue with light. 

Beautiful days. 

Then again. There were days like these. 

The street outside her window was eerily, strangely empty. So void of people it was as if someone was shooting a movie, where the apocalypse had hit, humanity gone. 

Even with the rain, there would normally be more people outside, clad in raincoats and sporting galoshes and umbrellas, running to protect themselves, but venturing outside nonetheless.

The virus had driven everyone inside. If she looked at the windows of the building on the other side of the street, she could see movement, much more movement than usual behind curtains, people walking around their own homes, water hitting windows, the rain that fell insistently, as if to confirm the order, “stay inside”. 

Today, she could not see the sky, but she knew it was grey. The clouds were heavy and dark, promising rain for hours, and the wind blew with gusto, coming in through cracks, making spooky sounds. It was cold, dark, as if it was night at barely ten in the morning. 

But she could not help but think, quite naturally, 

“What a beautiful day.”

The TV was on, an old movie about a man homebound because of his broken leg, spying on his neighbors, uncovering secrets and murder, Grace Kelly a vision in various fashionable outfits. 

The smell of coffee wafted through the apartment, warm and inviting, along with something else, something sweet and rich sizzling in the kitchen. 

There was a blanket on the couch, there were Oreos on a plate, there were thick socks on her feet. 

And there was Frank, in sweatpants and long sleeves, walking around the place, asking her questions and telling her things, answering his phone when it rang, flipping whatever it was he was cooking for breakfast. 

With another glimpse at the window, Karen watched the rain beating against the glass, and, beyond that, saw the yellow light come on in the apartment across the street.

Turning back around, she walked to the couch when Frank exited the kitchen, a tray with plates and mugs and bowls, leaving a trail of steam as he walked. 

“Smells good”, she said, turning on a lamp she would normally just need at around 7pm, settling against the cushions, pulling the cover brought from the bed over their legs, admiring the plates stacked with French toasts, a large bowl of cut up bananas and strawberries, the mugs filled with steaming, delicious looking coffee. 

“I mean, if I can’t take you out for breakfast…”

“Hmm. This is better than going out”. Balancing the plate on her legs, she cut up a piece of French toast and sighed in pleasure, chewing through it. “So much better.”

She felt a kiss being placed on her temple, and she turned her head, to catch the next one with her lips. 

He lived here, now. With her. They lived together. Just in time, he was here, just in time to be with her through all this, she didn’t have to miss him. 

Frank leaned in a bit further, and then they both turned to eat, and watch the movie they had both watched before, while the wind crept in through the cracks on the window, the rain fell heavily outside, the sky remained a dark shade of grey, the socks warming their feet and the hot plates warming their legs. 

What a beautiful, beautiful day. 


	3. Fitness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While quarantined, it's important to keep a regular exercise routine.  
> Karen tries. Frank has other ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by my good intentios of doing some honest to God exercise. Thwarthed not by Frank, but by my own laziness/inability/lack of motivation/psychological issues.  
> Stay safe and, if you can, stay inside

He had always been an early riser. 

And he still did wake up very early, it was only that there was not much of a point getting out of bed, since he couldn’t go anywhere outside, so he just… Lingered a little longer, those days. 

It did help that he was now sharing a bed with Karen. Not for the first time, true, but it was not her bed, anymore, it was theirs. He had a side, he had things inside the bedside table, his book was sitting on top of it, his phone charger permanently plugged to the wall behind it. His bed, her bed, their bed. 

He liked that bed, very much, so he lingered. Got up to make coffee and came back to it, spent hours just lying there with her, talking, in silence, sleeping, napping, neither sleeping nor napping, naked, sweating, warm, high on her. 

He was in bed when he heard the unfamiliar voice, coming from the living room, greeting, instructing, booming not too loud, but not exactly quiet, either. Soft, but present. 

Stretching before getting up, Frank sat on the bed and listened.

It was the TV, but it was not a movie or TV show, and it wasn’t the normal pace and cadence of the news.

Walking out of the bedroom, he heard a woman telling her audience to take a deep breath in, hold it for a while, and then release it. 

Karen was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, the couch was slightly askew, the coffee table pushed to the wall to make room.

“What are you doing?”, he asked softly, and she glanced behind her for a second to look at him, turning her head back to the TV right after. 

“I’ve been eating too much junk”, she said, low, as if she would disturb the class if she spoke too loud. “And they say we should keep exercising, so I’m trying.”

Yoga. She sat there with her legs crossed for a while, then followed instructions to move like this, arms this way and legs that way, breathe, count, stretch, turn, hold it, and Frank found himself a bit… Hypnotized. 

The movements were slow, measured, she took long breaths in and out, her hair was up, but the ponytail followed her movements, fell when she moved her head, the woman on the TV instructed and Karen followed, her skin gaining a certain tint. 

And Frank watched. He didn’t mean to stare, but he did, standing there with a coffee mug in his hand while she bent to touch her toes, her legs stretched, the shorts she was wearing very tight on her thighs, the very loose and nearly transparent shirt not hiding the top she was wearing beneath it. 

It was a few minutes of this. He didn’t know how many, exactly, but it was a few of them, and he tried to leave her be, let her do her thing, stop staring. 

But then she stood up, her legs together, and bent over to touch her toes again, back straight, hair falling over to touch the floor, and he rolled his eyes, sitting the mug on the nearest surface. 

When she straightened up again, breathing deep, her eyes were closed and her cheeks were flushed. Still following instructions, she locked her fingers and lifted her arms high, not noticing when Frank walked to her. 

She yelped, preciously, when he took hold of her hands, brought them down, bent his knees and folded her over his shoulder, carrying her away from her online yoga class, leaving the instructor with the soothing voice speaking to the empty living room. 

“Frank!” She laughed over his shoulder while he walked with her back to the bedroom, where the bed remained unmade. “What are you doing?” 

He maneuvered her around in lieu of an answer, bringing her to sit on the bed, kneeling on the mattress himself and trapping her between his arms, forcing her to lie down, her face still red from exercise, eyes searching his, surprise and mischief on her smile. 

Frank looked at her face, admiring not for the first time how good looking she was, and reached to tug on her hair tie, asking silently that she let her hair down, and she did, pulling the elastic band off with ease, while he ran his hand a bit lower, tugging on her oversized shirt, making her laugh when she had to bring it over her head, moving down again to try and remove her shorts. 

She smiled and she laughed and she kissed him, arms and legs around him, breathing deep again, teeth against his skin, skin warm under his hands, soft and sleek with sweat, her nails on his scalp, on his shoulders, and he kissed and squeezed and moved and pressed, slow, no need to rush, there was nowhere they needed to be, the day was only beginning. 

“I’m locking you in here next time”, she said after, lying on her stomach, an arm tucked close, his hand running up and down her back. 

“Won’t be necessary”, he said, the tip of his nose touching hers. “You just blindsided me, that’s all. Give me a warning next time.”

“A warning. That I’ll be trying to do yoga in the living room.”

“Yeah. A chance to prepare for those shorts.”

She smiled, moved to kiss him again, long and lingering, backing away before he was ready to let go. 

“I’m gonna take a warm bath. Let me know if you want to join me.”

He still stayed in bed while she filled the tub, unwilling to let go of the warmth, the lazy feeling that was settling over him. But the smells coming from the bathroom were nice, and he supposed he could use a bath, so he got up and walked to her, finding her spreading foam on her arms.

“Room for one more?”

“Always”.


	4. Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank gets cabin fever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is me coping with the reality that people in our world hunt down other people like prey just because of the color of their skin. This is, I guess you could say, therapy. I hope it makes you smile.

It wasn’t long until Frank got cabin fever. 

Staying inside all day was not at all like him. How long had he been spending most of his days outside, moving, doing something, or just looking at the people walking around the street?

To Karen’s amusement - and delight - he cleaned the entire apartment, top to bottom, and was even able to remove the touch stains on the light switches. He did something to the fridge, and by the time he was done, the shelves and the door were gleaming as if had just arrived from the store, brand new. 

But the apartment was not big enough to keep him entertained for long, so he started ordering things online to improve on little stuff, like the shelves she needed for her shoes, since she had needed to make room for his, or these fancy magnets to install on bottom of the doors, so they would stop banging shut whenever it was a little windy. He spent a whole afternoon on the phone with David Lieberman, deciding on the best cameras to install around the place.

Reading only took him so far. He went through four books before he found it hard to keep still, and it was even worse with Netflix. 

Then, one day, the masks they bought from the neighbor from two floors down were ready, and she texted to let them know she had left them at their door. 

“I thought they’d be much worse”, Karen said, after they wired the neighbor the money and collected the neatly packed masks. “These are good, look!”

She put one on and they were, indeed, much better than they both had expected. Not fancy or in any way tech advanced, but a simple cloth mask that covered mouth and nose without leaving gaps. All of them black. 

“I think I’ll order more”, Karen mused, while Frank put one on. As far as masks go, this was not the worst he had ever worn, not by a long shot. 

That night, Frank lied awake in bed, his finger twitching, unable to sleep. They had cooked a big dinner together, looking for something to do to spend the time and use the things they had on the pantry, trying to avoid spoiling food. 

Karen had also stayed awake for longer than usual, but now she breathed slowly, sleeping by his side, and Frank had given up keeping his eyes closed, and now stared at the ceiling. 

After what seemed like forever, he looked at the window and noticed that the sky was starting to become a tad lighter. When he checked his phone, it told him it was 4:34 in the morning. With a glance at Karen, he got up, careful not to wake her. 

After silently dressing, Frank picked up his phone from the bedside table and carried his shoes to the living room, stopping to pick up one of the masks they had washed before starting on dinner. The radiator had dried them all completely, leaving them warm and crisp feeling. 

Closing the apartment door silently behind him, he locked it and then moved quickly down the stairs. 

He couldn’t take a proper breath in, with the mask covering his mouth and nose, but the fresh air that made it through his lungs when he inhaled deeply were enough to make him feel better already. Looking at the empty street before him, Frank set off for the first jog he had in years. 

Ever since he came back from his last tour, he favored other ways of exercising. Jogging was neither possible nor efficient after the whole mess, but it felt good, it felt natural, to run without hurry and from nobody, not chasing anybody. Run for the sake of running. 

He was on a break by the river, almost an hour later, when his phone pinged. 

“Ok”, said Karen’s text, in reply to the one he had sent her before he left the apartment, letting her know he was off for a run. “Have fun”, and then, almost as an afterthought, “Be careful. Don’t touch anything and don’t take off your mask.”

“Yes, ma’am”, he replied. 

Frank ran for a good while. Not counting the time, or the miles, or his heartbeat, he just ran, took breaks, walked and then ran some more, looking as the morning made the city brighter, noticing how strange it the streets looked, so empty, even this early. He ran and he wished he could take off his mask, but he didn’t, happy that at least he was able to breathe some fresh air and not see any walls around him, for a change. 

The sun was up when he turned to make his way back, at 7:15.

There was a bakery one corner away from home, and the smell of fresh bread lured him in. A man in uniform, a mask and gloves told him they just took a fresh batch out of the oven, and Frank bought a few, along with cheese and two cups of coffee (which they had at the apartment, but he figured these people were risking themselves to provide food for the neighborhood and try and keep their business alive, so what’s two cups of extra coffee?)

“Thank you so much for your support” said the guy, handing him the bag and the cup holder through a window. 

“Thank you”, Frank replied, happy for this little slice of normal. “You guys open tomorrow?” 

“From seven to seven.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Name’s Frank.”

“I’m Ray. See you, Frank. Have a good day.”

He walked the rest of the way, and had to balance his purchases in one hand while taking the key from his shoe, towing said shoes off and unlocking the door, walking in in his socks.”

“Frank?” Karen called from the bedroom. 

“I’m here” he called back, starting the new strange process of cleaning the things he brought home with him. 

After putting the warm bread on the designated bread basket and disposing of the paper bag, he transferred the cheese to a clean container and the coffee to the coffee pot, where Karen had not yet pushed the button to brew. 

After his shower, he walked to the bedroom, feeling much, much better than he felt before getting up this morning. 

Karen was still in bed, phone in hand, and smiled at him when he walked in. 

“Hi”, she greeted, and he walked to her. “Enjoy your run?”

“Hmm”, was his answer, lying down half on top of her, kissing her gently, closing his eyes when her hands caressed his hair. “I brought breakfast.”

“I can smell it”, she said, softly. “That show we wanted to watch is available on Netflix. Wanna eat on the couch and watch it with me?”

He made them egg sandwiches and brought it to the couch while she cued the new show on TV, and when he settled down to watch it, he didn’t feel restless or that itch that made him want to get up every five seconds. 

What a difference, a run made. 

.:.

He came back to the apartment on the fourth day with croissants and the usual coffee, sweating profusely, since he had not made any stops this time, nor did he walk, and the jog was just straight up sprinting.

“Kare?” he called from the kitchen.

“I’m here!” she called back, and he saw her hand waving at him through the window. She was in the fire escape. 

He had to deal with the sanitizing of the shopping and then a shower, so it was a few minutes before he walked to the living room window. 

Before he got to the ledge, she popped her head inside and smiled at him. 

“I got you something.”

When Frank ducked to climb out to the narrow fire escape, he saw what she had gotten: a hammock. 

Cream colored, she had tied it on the iron bars above head, it hung a good few inches above the floor. She had placed two throw pillows in it, plus a heavy blanket. 

“You’ve been feeling so cooped up, I thought this would maybe help a little.

Turning to her, Frank smiled and moved to kiss her. 

“You didn’t have to do that”, he said, a hand caressing her hair. 

“I wanted to. I’m only sorry it took so long to arrive, I ordered it almost a month ago.”

Frank looked at the hammock, swaying lightly in the wind, and thought that this small act, this simple purchase for his benefit made him a little more sure that she meant it, when she said she loved him. 

It was silly, he knew that, but there still was a little part of him that expected her to wake up one day and realize that all she thought she felt for him was nothing but the thrill of the danger, the forbidden, the very ill advised act of rebellion, or even misinterpreted feelings of concern and worry and gratitude.

The fact that she didn’t run away from him after they slept together for the first time, or asked him to stay after the second third fourth and so on, asked him to move in, gave him a key, made room for his things, made room for him, bought him a hammock. It all told him that yeah, she was serious about that love. 

“Maybe we can have breakfast here?” he suggested, and she beamed, nodding. 

“So you like it?”

“I do”, he said against her mouth. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Settle in, I’ll get the food.”

They ate the croissants and drank the coffee while sharing the hammock, after adjusting the height a little bit. 

“This is so good”, she said around a mouthful of warm croissant, taking a sip of coffee, looking out at the street below them. 

Frank watched as the morning light caught in her hair, how it made her eyes shine just a tad bluer, accentuated the few freckles she had on her nose.

“Yeah, it is”, he agreed, squeezing her foot under the blanket, thankful that, if he had to be stuck inside, at least it was with her.


	5. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their family grows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for Mick, my angel of a puppy, who saved me from spiralling into darkness five months ago. I love and adore him with my whole entire heart. Maybe that's why he's such a spoiled little boy.

Frank came back home one day with a dog. 

Almost an hour after he had left for his run, he called Karen, saying that he had found an injured dog and took it to the vet, so he might be a while longer. 

When he did return, it was with a big pitbull, that did look injured. It’s paw was bandaged, and it looked frightened. 

“What did the vet say?” Karen asked while Frank put it on top of a mat in a corner of the kitchen. 

“Probably a fight dog.”

“Oh, no!” Karen gasped, looking at the poor thing, curled up in a ball. 

“Yeah. She had a few ticks, a few bruises, the worst was a bite in her paw.” 

“It’s a she?” 

“Yeah.” Frank looked at her, something in his eyes. 

“What?”

“She’s, uh… She’s pregnant.”

Karen lifted her brows, and Frank kept looking at her. And she just knew, from the way he did, that he wanted to keep the dog. 

After he explained that they had bathed her at the vet, removed the ticks and cleared her for fleas, he went to take his shower, and Karen stood there in the kitchen looking at the dog, not knowing what to think. 

She felt sorry for her, of course she did, but this was such a small apartment, and there would be puppies, Karen didn’t know how in the world they were going to manage Lord knows how many dogs, in the middle of a pandemic, no less!

After Frank’s shower, they sat down to have breakfast and talk about it. 

“I’m assuming there was no chip on her?” she said, pouring coffee for them. 

“No. Nothing on social media, either, as far as they could tell, and nobody called asking for a lost pitbull.”

“Yeah, I mean, if she was a fight dog, I doubt they’d be looking for her in any official capacity.”

Frank looked at the dog, who was snoozing next to the radiator after they fed her a bowl of the dog food Frank had bought. 

“You want to keep her, don’t you?”

He brought his eyes back to her, looking as if he had been caught, and sighed. 

“Yeah”, he said, smiling. “But I don’t know how you feel about that.”

Karen took a bite of toast. 

“I never… Considered getting a dog. And rescuing one, a pregnant one, in the middle of this quarantine thing sounds like a load of trouble, not to mention expensive.” She rested her face in her hand, looking towards the dog. “On the other hand, it seems cruel to not help. She’s injured, she’s pregnant, you found her in the street… If she really doesn’t have an owner, how could we send her away?”

“I mean, there’s… Shelters.”

The way he said it made it seem like it was physically painful for him just to consider that option. 

“But you wanna keep her.”

He drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a few seconds and then turned back to her. 

“Yeah.”

Karen blinked under his stare, and then it clicked. 

“Are you- Are you asking my permission?”

He smiled, so sweetly she wanted to kiss him. 

“It’s your apartment.”

“It’s ours”, she reminded him. “You live here, Frank, it’s as much yours as it’s mine. We should make these decisions together.”

“Ok”, he said, taking her hand and rubbing her wrist with his thumb. “Then I vote we keep her.”

She didn’t know why, but that made her laugh. Maybe it was the quickness of the answer, maybe it was the eagerness in his face, maybe it was how casual he was trying to keep his voice, or maybe it was the fact that presenting his vote still made it her decision, ultimately. 

“How about this?” she said after finishing her toast and refilling her mug with coffee. “We keep her for a while, she’s not in a good shape to keep moving around, from the street, to the vet, to here, to wherever. Help her with her wounds, take her to get the exams you said she needs, and wait. If she has an owner, a good one, not a dog ring owner, and they show up claiming her, we give her back.”

“And if nobody does?”

She paused. 

“Then we have another meeting”, she proposed, with an air of “I don’t know what else to do.”

Frank smiled, nodded, and picked up her hand to place a kiss on her knuckles.

“Ok.”

He called the vet a little before lunchtime, to ask if someone had gotten in touch asking for the pitbull, and the answer was “nothing yet”, but they had put out a message. 

On the next few days, he went out to buy proper food for her breed, he took her back to the vet to check on the puppies, he bought a dog bed. 

(“She needs to be comfortable, because of the pups. If someone shows up for her I’ll give them the bed.”)

Slowly, the dog started to trust that she was not gonna be harmed, started to walk around the apartment, look up at them curiously, let them pet her without flinching, she stopped hiding under the kitchen counter.

Instead of running, Frank would now go on multiple walks with her, and it was extra work, to wash the dog’s paws and take a shower every time they came back, but he didn’t complain once. 

After almost a month, she had regular visits to the vet, she had gained weight (both because she was being properly fed and because of the growing puppies inside her belly), she liked to sit with her chin on the windowsill, feeling the breeze on her face.

Karen had started to call her “lady”. They didn’t want to name her, in case she already had a name, but they needed to call her something other than “the dog”. At first, it was “this lady”, as in “has this lady eaten yet?”, and then Frank caught on, saying “I’m taking the lady out for her walk”, and then she was just lady. Lady, capital L.

One afternoon, Karen was sitting on the floor with her, trying to teach her to give her paw, and giving her treats when she got it right. 

“She’s really intelligent”, she said, after Lady put her paw on Karen’s outstretched hand, and she cooed and rubbed her face and moved to place a kiss on her head. “Good girl, Lady!”

Frank had noticed how Karen slowly fell for the dog. She was a tad distant at first, and then she started worrying, asking about the exams results, and then she was always checking on her, taking photos, ordering expensive organic shampoos online (“I don’t want to hurt the puppies, what if the chemicals are bad for them?”), talking to her, explaining what her book was about, settling in the couch together to watch a movie while Frank hung out in his hammock, carrying her out to the fire escape to swing on the hammock a little, smiling and cooing when the dog closed her eyes, enjoying the wind on her face. 

“You keep that up”, Frank said, from the couch, while Karen kept asking for Lady’s paw. “And you’ll have a hard time if someone shows up to claim her.”

“Oh, nobody’s gonna claim her! It’s been a month!”

“You sure?”

“Her photo’s been making rounds on social media, and I’ve had people offering to take her, but nobody said they were her owners. I think she’s here to stay.”

Frank’s eyebrows went up, and he smiled in spite of himself when both Karen and Lady laid down on the floor, face to face, and Karen rubbed the dog’s swollen belly delicately. 

“You mean that?”

“I do”. Her voice was sing-song, sweet, cooing, full of love. “Of course I do, Frank, look at her. She’s ours, she’s family, of course she’s staying, aren’t you, sweet Lady, aren’t you?”

“No meeting needed?”

She looked back at Frank.

“Why? Did you change your mind?”

“Nope.”

“So that’s that”, she said, facing the dog again, who lifted her chin when Karen scratched her there. “She’s staying. Forever.”

Before she could change her mind, Frank texted the vet who had been treating her to tell her they had decided to keep the dog.    
“Fantastic!” the doctor replied. “Congratulations!”

The very next day, just before lunch, they heard whimpers: Lady was having her puppies.

Frank called the veterinarian and she walked them through the process. Soon after, there were four puppies nursing eagerly, and Karen cried real tears of joy. 

“You did so good”, she said, petting Lady’s head gently, kissing her forehead. “You did so good, Lady, you’re so brave.”

Frank had a picture of that moment on his phone: Lady with her head on Karen’s leg, the puppies nursing, Karen with her hair blocking her face, looking down and them. 

It was interesting to see Karen’s transition in regards to the dogs. For someone who was so reluctant at first, she embraced the idea with big enthusiasm. 

They had, for example, agreed that their bed was off limits to the dogs. One day, when the puppies were almost a week old, Frank came back from his run to find Karen snuggled up in bed with Lady and the four little babies, all six of them sleeping soundly. 

“They were crying”, she explained sleepily when Frank got back into bed with them. “There was nothing I could do.”

So now, everyday, he went out to run, leaving the pups on their own bed on the floor, and came back to find them on his own bed. 

And Karen stood for her decision everyday. 

.:.

Soon enough, the puppies all had homes. Curtis got the first one, and it took almost no convincing at all.

“He’s cute, man”, he said over the video call, while Karen held the bigger of all the puppies in front of the camera. “How old is he?”

“Almost two weeks”, Frank said while the puppy sniffed the screen of the phone, curious. 

“Aw, look at him. What’s up, little man?” Curtis said, smiling as the puppy licked the screen of Frank’s phone. “He’s got a name?”

“Not yet. We can’t keep them all, I thought maybe you’d want one.”

Curtis scratched his cheek, thinking.

“You found the mom on the street?”

“Yeah, she was in a rough shape. Our best guess is that she used to be a fight dog, and she was either abandoned or ran away.”

“That’s fucked up. Lemme see her.”

They talked for a little while longer, and he could feel Curtis warming up to the idea of keeping one of the puppies. 

“We don’t want to sell them”, Karen said, holding one in each hand, sitting on the floor. “Much less send them to shelters, so we thought maybe finding them homes with our friends. And you, the honest loner of a Marine’s medic, we thought you’d take good care of him.”

“See, now you’re playing dirty. Why you gotta appeal to my caretaker side like that?”

In the end, he agreed to keep him. And even named him. 

“I’ll call him Pete”, he said, smirking

“Funny”, Frank said, even though he didn’t use the alias anymore. 

The next call was to David. Sarah was the one who picked up. 

“Ooh, look how sweet!”

She mused about the puppies for a while, and then Zach got into the room, saw them, and yelled for his sister to come down to the living room. 

Karen smiled conspiratorially at Frak when Leo and Zach’s faces shared the screen, over the moon about the tiny puppies.

“We’d have to ask your father”, Sarah tried to reason.

“Mom, look at that one, look at that one! Mom, please?”

Sarah ended up summoning David, who blinked at the phone. 

“You got dogs?!” he asked Frank, who explained the story. 

“Oh, no!” Leo cried, horrified. “Dad, we have to take one, please, please!”

“I can have one and you can have another”, Zach suggested to his sister. 

“You want to get two dogs?!” Sarah interjected. “Who’s gonna take care of the mess if we get two dogs?!”

“We will!” Leo jumped. “We promise, mom, we’ll take care of them, walk them and feed them, everything, please, please, please!”

Sarah and David looked at each other.

“We do have the space”, Sarah mused.

“What if they… Crap everywhere?” David asked. 

“We’ll clean it up!” Zach jumped. 

“They can be potty trained”, Leo offered, eager. “And they’re babies, so it wouldn’t be difficult!”

“Let me take another look at them”, David asked. 

In the end, they said they needed to talk, to decide if it would be a good idea or not, and promised to call later with their decision. 

Some 40 minutes later, while Karen was in the hammock with all the puppies, they called back, and when Frank picked up, it was to Leo’s excited face. 

“They said yes!” she told him, elated, and Frank smiled. “They said we can keep two of them!”

Frank filmed the puppies again, for them to pick which ones they wanted, and it was decided that Leo would have the only girl in the litter, and Zach would get one of the boys.

“I can’t wait!” Leo said, after saying goodbye and giving the phone back to David. 

“Bye, Frank!” Zach said, more eager than Frank has ever seen him, smiling and everything. 

“Bye, buddy.”

“That was entrapment”, David said, in a low voice, when the kids were out of ear shot. “What the hell am I gonna do with two dogs, you jackass?”

“Raise them?” Frank suggested. 

“You’re gonna love them, David”, Karen said. “I promise, they’re so sweet.”

“If one of them bite me”, he said, “I’m gonna bite you, Frank, I don’t even care.” 

.:.

They paused to decide who would get the remaining puppy. 

“The logical choice would be Matt”, Karen said, rocking gently on the hammock with the babies while Frank sat by the window, on the fire escape, Lady’s head on his knee. “Single, lives alone, a good size apartment, he’s active. But I don’t know if he’d want one.”

“I’m not sure I’d want him to have one of my dogs”, Frank said, casually, and Karen rolled her eyes. 

“You two need to figure out a way to live with each other.”

“What about Nelson?”

“I doubt Marci would let him keep one. Their apartment is too fancy, too full of breakable things. Maybe Dinah?”

“Nah, she’s never home.”

They went through a list of names, all of them crossed out for some reason or another. 

“I mean, we could… You know, we could keep him”, Frank said, picking the puppy in question from his spot on Karen’s belly, big hand scooping him up easily. 

She blinked at him. 

“You think so?”

“I think so.” 

A few weeks later, when the puppies were old enough to be separated from Lady, Karen and Frank drove to deliver Pete to Curtis, who got the box and waved at them from his building’s door - since they couldn’t get too close, social distancing and everything. 

They left the box with a bow on the Lieberman’s front door, and Frank honked once to signal their arrival. Leo and Zach yanked the door open and kneeled by the box, and Frank smiled when they took their puppies out and ran to the front yard to play with them. 

“Thanks, guys!” Yelled Leo, and they waved at her from the other side of the street, leaning against the car. 

“Come visit when this is all over”, Sarah said, hand shielding her eyes from the sun, the whole family now out of the house, looking at the newcomers.

“You got it”, Frank nodded. 

They took Lady and the last remaining puppy for a drive, and then a walk by the water, Karen holding the tiny guy, since he was too young and a few shots short of being allowed to walk on his own. 

“So what’s this guy’s name?”

Frank asked, hand wrapped around Lady’s leash, the three of them walking leisurely. 

Karen looked at the puppy, who tried to nibble on her mask. 

“I don’t know.” She thought for a few seconds, and then cuddled him. “It’s too soon, he hasn’t told me his name yet.”

But she called him by these cutesy words, like “buhba”, “munchkin”, or “cookie”, and one day she landed on “Pooka”, and it stuck. 

Frank would argue that “Pooka” wasn’t an actual name, but the pup seemed to like it. When Karen lied down on the floor with him, he would make his wobbly way over to her and was already responding to the sound of the name.

So Pooka it was. Lady and Pooka. Frank and Karen. 

His tiny, mismatched, traumatized, fighter of a family. 

And he loved them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for Mick, my little angel of a puppy, who saved me from spiralling into darkness five months ago. I love and adore him with my whole heart. Maybe that's why he's such a spoiled little boy.


	6. Cookin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Food to nurture the soul - and help pass the time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is based on my experience during this quarantine. Any of you been cooking more?

Frank now made a lot of popcorn. A lot. 

They did their best to establish a rhythm that would help them not lose their mind during quarantine: Frank had his runs on the crack of dawn, Karen would watch many YouTube videos on exercise, yoga, pilates, meditation, hiit, full body workouts, a whole variety. 

The dogs also brought more activities for them. Lady had to be walked, Pooka had to be trained, they both had to be bathed, vaccinated, fed, taken care of. 

Frank was still finding things to tweak around the apartment, Karen spent a lot of time cataloguing hers and Frank’s books, arranging them in alphabetical order, making a list of which she wanted to read and what order she wanted to read them.

Still. Twenty-four hours in an apartment, seven days a week, there was still plenty of time to spare. 

So they watched movies and tv shows and documentaries and YouTube videos about this or that. And Frank always made them popcorn. 

Sometimes they found movies that they really liked, sometimes they would strike up in conversation only a few minutes in, and eat their popcorn while the TV went on, ignored. Sometimes they would fall asleep, sometimes Frank would pin her down on the couch and she would wrap herself around him. 

A lot of variables, one constant: popcorn. 

He would always get a bag of lose kernel, saying that the microwave stuff had a “weird smell”, and would spend a few minutes standing in front of the stove, the dogs sitting eagerly at his feet, until there was a beautiful, amazing smelling bowl of popcorn in his hands, that he would take to the couch, where Karen waited for him, remote control at the ready. 

“This kitchen has never seen so much action before, I swear”, she said one day, while he stood making his popcorn and she dumped cake batter on a pan, ready to take it to the oven. 

Their breakfast came from the bakery at the corner, where they were now regulars. Every day, Frank would buy coffee and something to eat - bread, croissants, bagels, a new item the chef added to the menu. Karen would go and buy donuts, cake, pastries and supplies for her own kitchen experiments. 

Lunch was sometimes ordered in, when they felt like eating sushi, fried chicken, chinese, thai food, something that they were not equipped to make themselves. 

Dinner was, most of the time, the leftovers of lunch. And sometimes it would be popcorn. 

Most of the time, though, they would cook. Karen had a notebook filled with recipes, that she said she got from her mother, who collected recipes from family, neighbors, celebrities, magazines.

“I don’t even know how I have this”, she told him one day. “I definitely don’t remember packing it before I left Vermont, but I did.”

Frank also had a few recipes under his belt, but they weren’t written down. 

And they already had a few favorite of their own, and would go through them depending on their mood, on the weather, on the supplies they had. Some, however, they tried only once, like this thing that looked like something canned, but wasn’t. A gelatinous thing that didn't require any gelatine, savory sort of cake that could be eaten cold or warm, according to Mrs. Page’s notes. Karen tried it one day, and one bite was enough for them to decide they would not be trying it again. 

“It’s not even the taste”, she said, washing the dishes afterwards. “The texture threw me off, what even was that?”

“Maybe you missed something?” Frank suggested, putting the clean dishes away - he never let them just sit on the sink. They had to be immediately properly stored in the cupboard. 

“I triple checked. It was definitely right.”

The lasagna was a success. So was Maria’s pasta, and Frank’s own pancakes. 

He rolled his eyes when she said both Matt and Foggy liked her triple chocolate cookies. 

“Oh, if  _ Matt _ likes them.”

.:.

They were both lying on the hammock one afternoon, a big bowl of popcorn sitting on Frank’s stomach, the dogs snoozing inside, by the window. 

The popcorn had been intended to go with a movie, but Karen then noticed how nice it was outside, and the color of the sky was beautiful, so they decided to watch the sunset instead. 

She was making brownies, a simple recipe she knew since she was a kid, and the batter had tasted amazing. However, 

“Oh no!” she said, and moved quickly to get out of the hammock and back inside, startling Frank, who had his eyes closed and his arm around her. 

“What?” he asked, sitting up. 

“The brownies”, she said simply, hurrying back inside, and that’s when he smelled it. Burnt.

“Shit!” he heard her say, and tried to peer inside without getting up. 

“What happened?” he asked, spotting her sitting in front of the the open stove, trying to maneuver the pan inside. 

“I don’t know, it just… Overflowed.”

She sounded frustrated. 

“Oh, crap”, she went on. “There was baking powder in the flower, I got the wrong one!”

“Is it all ruined?” he asked. 

She tried to put another pan under the original one, to catch the batter that was spilling, and decided to leave it in the oven for the rest of the remaining time. 

It didn’t smell good. The batter that had fallen into the oven itself burned to a crisp, filling the apartment with a nauseating smell. Frank opened all the windows and Karen sprayed lavender water around. 

When she did take the thing out of the oven, the brownie looked a mess. And she wanted to toss the whole thing, but Frank noticed that the crust looked actually pretty good in the original pan. Trying a piece, he lifted his brows, surprised. 

“It’s still good.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not, try it.” 

And it was. It had spilled, and it was not pretty, but aside from that, it was a very good brownie. 

In the end, she had scraped the spilled parts from the extra pan she had put in the oven, cut the thing in little pieces and transferred it to a different container, throwing the burnt parts into the trash. Frank called her back outside, to resume her place next to him in his hammock, and they finished the popcorn and nibbled on the honest to God very tasty brownie.

“I’ll make another one”, she promised. “With the correct flower, and it’ll look and taste amazing, you’ll see.”

He kissed the top of her head and closed his eyes again, glad he didn't have to lie to appease her feelings - something he had been fully prepared to do.

.:.

A few weeks later, after they had stocked their pantry with fresh groceries, he smelled brownies again. Looking over, he saw her sitting in front of the oven, Lady sitting by her side, Poka squeezed between them, his tail lazily going from side to side, watching the oven. 

A few minutes later, and she walked over to him, with a plate full of beautiful, wonderful smelling square pieces of brownie. 

“Told ya”, she said, happily, after he tasted it and assured her that it was very, very good.

Frank smiled, got another piece, and ignored the dogs pleading eyes. 


	7. Darlin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apple of the neighborhood's eye, Karen Page

MISS PAGE/DARLIN

Frank has always known that Karen was well liked. 

If her looks weren’t enough, she was just, well, nice. Nicer than he ever managed to be, that’s for sure. And her big blue eyes did make it easy for people to just fall for her, in so many different ways. 

“Hi, Miss Page!” Went the neighbor from across the hall, a pre teen with a hair that made her at least a foot taller than she actually was.

“Hi Leilani!” Karen replied, all smiles and sweetness. “Any progress on the project?”

Leilani, she later explained to him, wanted to be a scientist, and did all sort of experiments. 

“Sometimes she’ll come over and ask to borrow baking powder or spare batteries, so you be on the lookout.”

(Frank helped Leilani motorize her skateboard, from six feet away, on the second month of him living in the building. Cool kid.)

“Hello, darling”, greeted the elderly couple that were always on the window of their first floor apartment of the building next to theirs.

“Hello, Mrs. Cosio! Mr. Cosio, how are you?”

They recognized Frank from the news immediately. He was walking past their window one day, before he moved in, and Mrs. Cosio waved him over, and after disappearing from the window for a few seconds, came back and handed him a plate of something warm that he later found out were pastelitos. 

“Good job on all those criminal people you got rid of”, she whispered, winking at him. Mr. Cosio always offered him a beer.

“They’re nice”, Karen told him. “But they know everything about everyone on this street, so be careful.”

“Whassup Miss Page?” Went the delivery boy from the Thai place. 

“I keep telling you, Atid”, she said, taking the bags from his hands. “It’s Karen. How’s school?”

Karen was invited to the ceremony when Atid’s parents, Sanoh and Kasem, got their citizenship.

“I always tip him way too much”, she told Frank over delicious Pad Thai. “Because he’s saving to help pay for college.” 

Frank would talk to Mr. Salae - Atid’s father - about marriage and its challenges sometimes, when the man would complain about his wife.

(“You married?” He asked Frank once. And he hesitated. 

“Uh… Widower.”

Mr. Salae patted his hand.

“Me too. Before Sanoh.” And then he pointed at Karen, who was walking towards the restaurant to meet Frank.

“She fix your heart.”

That was before Frank ever got the courage to let himself feel what he already felt for her.

And he was right.)

Overall, there were so many people that would greet Karen with care and love and happiness, and she would tell him all about them, even the guys who would try to flirt, either unaware of her relationship with Frank or choosing to ignore it.

The result was that he began to feel himself a part of that small community, that two or three block radius, even before he was confined inside because of a virus. 

“But you know”, told him Victor, the highly intelligent six year old from the apartment directly above them, while Frank sat in his hammock and the boy hung out with his legs dangling from the fire escape. “They will make a vaccine. We have to help, staying home, but they will find a cure.”

“Too bad you can’t help them, kid”, Frank said, his eyes scanning to make sure that the small child was not about to fall from where he was perched, one floor above. 

“I would, too. But I still have school. But when I grow up, I’ll be able to.”

He would share Karen’s Oreos, and she would spend hours talking to him when his parents needed a break, baby sitting from a floor away.

“Bob and Don wanted him for so long, they were so happy when the adoption finally happened.”

Some of their neighbors - most of them - knew who he was. There was one that avoided him, a couple from the street over that would turn around and walk away when they saw him, but most of them were fine with it. Some of them didn’t connect the dots at all.

He saw it in his face when Ray from the bakery finally figured out who he was, his eyebrows shooting up when Leilani walked by with her mother once and went “hi, Mr. Castle!”, and Frank was afraid, for a minute, that he would not be welcome anymore, but then he got two extra croissants, and a “have a nice day, Frank”, with a vigorous nod, and that was that on the subject. 

Karen’s presence, he knew, was a big thing on his favor. She was loved by these people, and she was also not shy about her feelings for him. She served as a proxy, he imagined, and the people that were so fond of her looked at how much she liked him, and how much he liked her, and that served as proof enough that he was worth being welcomed among them.

She was lying on the couch one afternoon, with Pooka on top of her belly watching the TV with so much attention it was like he was actually enjoying the show, when Frank’s cell phone pinged with a text. 

It was a photo, from the bakery. 

“As per Miss Page’s request and suggestion”, it said. “We now have pain au chocolat! You can order it on it’s own, or a combo, which includes a small cappuccino and a blondie. We call it ‘Karen’s combo’! ;)”

“Oh, that is so sweet!” She said when Frank showed her the text, and then replied to the bakery, promising to stop by later to try it. 

“How come everybody you meet just loves you so much?” he asked, placing her legs on his lap on the couch, massaging her ankles. 

She smiled, dismissively. 

“It’s definitely them, not me. People here are amazing.”

He looked at her, lying there on the couch with her legs on his lap and Pooka on top of her, texting with the people from the bakery around the corner, forwarding the photo to people, and his heart felt so full of love for her that he answered his own question. 

Was he not, after all, one of those people that had just fallen into her orbit, and was privileged enough that she deemed him worthy of keeping close?

He definitely understood why everybody lit up at her presence. 

“You’re not gonna believe this”, she said when she walked through the door, later, Lady in tow, a big, good smelling paper bag in her other hand. “Ray didn’t let me pay!”

“How come?” Frank asked, moving to help her with the dog, the bag and her coat. 

“He said they had many people today ordering the Karen combo! And, as a thank you for the suggestion, he said that my order today was on the house. It was a forty dollar order!”

“You spent forty dollars on pastries?” he asked. 

“Well, I didn’t, because I didn't pay, but yeah. They named a menu item after me, Frank.”

They ate pain au chocolat and blondies and drank cappuccino, and Frank lied with his head on her lap after, her fingers in his hair, and thought that he would probably be made president of “Karen’s fan club”, if they ever came up with something like that. 


	8. pop culture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen educates Frank on all things he doesn't need to know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably yhe silliest thing I have ever written for this pair.   
> Stick with me. I'll get good again.   
> Much love. Wear your damn masks.

“Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande are leading the charts”, Karen said one morning, while they both lounged in bed, after he decided - well, she persuaded him - to skip his jog just once. 

“Hmm”, was his reply, eyes closed. “And they are...”

Karen chuckled, and he suspected she had already told him about those two people. 

“Singers. Extremely famous.”

“Oh.”

It had become a running joke. She would read him pop culture news once and awhile, claiming he knew far too little about what went on outside his own life and general politics. 

David was actually the cause for that. He had called one day, to give them updates on the puppies - now named Blake, the girl that belonged to Leo, and Iron, the boy that was Zach’s - and said something about someone called Black Pink, which turned out to be several someones. 

“It’s this Kpop band, Leo plays their stuff non stop”, he told Frank, when he looked confused. And then, immediately, “Do you know what Kpop is?”

“Should I?” 

And Karen thought that was so endearing, kissed him and said he was “adorably clueless”, and started reading him these news here and there, that he barely understood most of the time.

“You liked Lady Gaga”, she said, turning to look at him, a sliver of sun on her skin, from a gap in the curtains. “Remember, we watched that movie?”

“The, uh- with the girl that gets famous and the guy…”

“Yes.”

“That’s her, then. Ok.”

Another day, he was sitting at the door, while Leilani played with Pooka in the hallway, when she took out her phone and turned to him. 

“Can I do a Tik Tok with him?”

Frank looked at her a little puzzled, and she showed him her phone. “Like a video? For the internet.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Karen came back from the walk with Lady and he asked her about it, after they all got inside again. 

“It’s like Instagram, but mainly for teenagers, they do these challenges.”

He blinked.

“It’s social media, like Facebook and Twitter.”

She showed him said Tik Toks on her phone and he watched a few, only to declare “I don’t get it”, giving her phone back to her after a few minutes. 

“You never tell me about people I know, like… Prince, he’s cool”, he said after she told him something about someone called Frank Ocean. 

Karen blinked at him.

“Frank…” she started, her voice almost careful. “You know he- he died, right?”

“What- Prince did?”

“Yeah. A few years ago.”

That truly surprised him. 

“Shit. How?”

He spent a few days in a controlled rage about that fact, and started going through a list of artists he knew and liked, checking they were still alive.

“Any more of the Beatles die?” 

“No, they’re good.”

It was Karen’s turn to be surprised when she came home from her own jog one day, to find him sitting on the couch watching reality TV. The Kardashians, to be more specific. 

They had watched the OJ Simpson season of American Crime Story, and she had explained to him that Robert Kardashian was the father of a very famous family that had a show that was still on. 

“I thought it would be like… Different”, he explained when she asked, extremely intrigued, why he was watching that. “But they’re just… Famous because they’re famous, I don’t get it.”

“Yeah, no one does”, she said, walking to the bathroom to take her shower.

To Karen’s further surprise, he kept watching the show. 

“That’s that rapper you told me about”, he said, when Kanye West showed up on the screen one day.

“Yeah, he’s married to Kim.”

“Will it last longer than her other marriage?”

The Kardashians became background noise for a while, and Frank’s knowledge in current pop culture improved greatly, and he spent a lot of time on his computer after Caitlyn Jenner transitioned, researching, Karen suspected.

Eventually, he stopped watching the show, claiming he couldn’t handle anymore. 

“You know what you  _ should _ watch?”

She sat down to watch Queer Eye with him, and while he didn’t cry once - like she had, the first time she watched it - he didn’t get distracted, sometimes commenting things like “That’s fucked up”, or “nice”, or laughing at something or other. 

Frank sat through six Star Wars movies - which he knew about but had never watched - but was fidgety once he started on the more recent ones, turning his attention to the dogs almost immediately, giving up on actually finishing the saga. 

He sat for almost an hour one day on a video call with Leo, while she explained to him what her favorite Kpop bands were and why. 

“Do you understand what they say?” He asked, and Karen smiled, sitting at the desk, looking at her own computer. 

“That’s what Google Translator and subtitles are for”, she girl replied. “And some of them speak English. And I’m actually picking up on some words, now. ”

Little Victor from upstairs told him that he was reading the Harry Potter books for the first time, and while Frank knew about the books, since his own kids had read them all, he knew next to nothing about it. 

“I know Harry”, he told the boy, as always lying in his hammock, while Victor sat in his own fire escape, little legs dangling. “And there’s his friend, right? With the red hair?”

“His name is Ron”, said Victor.

“And there’s a girl, too. Her name’s complicated.”

He made Victor laugh while pretending not to know how to say the name “Hermione”, going “Herman? Herald? Horace?”, and the kid giggled.

Karen found him reading “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” in his hammock, after Victor lent it to him, before going inside to have dinner. 

“It’s a kid’s book”, Frank whispered to her when she got out to join him.

“The first three are, very kiddy. But the other four are more mature. Stick to it, you’ll see.”

“You read it?” He asked, reaching out for her hand. 

“Yeah”, she said, and then smiled. “When I was eleven. But!” She went on, when he made to argue that they were, in fact, kids books. “The last one came out when I was, like, nineteen, and I didn’t read it until I was twenty one, so there’s that. You’ll be fine.”

He read the three books that Victor lent him in two days, and told her that “shit was starting to get intense for Harry” after he finished the Goblet of Fire. 

“Is he gonna end up with Hermione?” He asked during diner one night when Victor tossed him The Order of the Phoenix. 

“I’m not gonna tell you!” Karen protested, putting a big spoonful of mashed potatoes in her plate. “Why? Do you want them to?”

“Nah”, he said. “I’m just asking, because I think her and Ron make more sense.”

“Aw. Do you ship Romione?”

He looked at her, swallowing a mouthful of steamed broccoli. 

“Do I what the what?”

Karen smiled. “Nevermind.”

His pop culture knowledge hadn’t made it to the lingo yet. 


	9. Limbo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Routine. What is it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you losing track of the days? Of yourself? Me too.

While Frank went out every morning for his run, and they shared the task of walking Lady - Pooka still too young to have walks of his own - Karen insisted on doing the shopping. 

Frank would volunteer, but she insisted, was eager to do it, even with all the trouble of sanitizing everything when she came back. 

“I’ll just run there real quick and get it”, she said one evening when they ran out of salt. 

“You’re gonna get caught in the rain”, he warned, because she kept insisting. “Go in the morning.”

“No, you want to make popcorn, we need it to cook tomorrow, it’s fine. I’ll be quick.”

She kissed him on the lips and turned around so quick that her ponytail slapped him in the face.

“Your mother’s too stubborn”, he told Pooka, who has gnawing on his pant leg, once the door closed behind Karen. 

He got distracted teaching Pooka to stay when told to stay, and then with coaxing him to jump off the couch into his hands. When Lady moved to sit in front of the door, Frank realized Karen was taking too much time for someone who just ran downstairs to pick up some salt from the grocery store. 

He called her three times, and it rang until he got her voicemail. He tried not to worry, she could be on her way back, she could simply not be paying attention to her phone, she could be avoiding taking it out of her pocket, a million things. Looking out the window, he heard the low rumble, the warning that rain was due in minutes.

Frank had just reached the voicemail a sixth time when he heard her steps on the staircase outside the door, and walked to open it. 

“Fuck’s sake, Kare”, he said, blocking Pooka’s path with his foot, before Lady collected him by his collar and brought him back inside. “You know I hate it when you don’t pick up your phone.”   
“Sorry, sorry”, she said, and he didn’t need to ask what had taken so long. 

She had two huge grocery bags, one on each arm, and was balancing them, to avoid the things inside them toppling over. 

“Jesus, what d’you do, bought the whole place?”

He moved to help her, and she sighed. 

“I shouldn’t have gone”, she said, toeing her shoes off and walking in. “I was hungry, I bought so much stuff, Frank.”

And she had. 

Four pints of different flavoured Ben & Jerry’s, Pringles, Oreos, chips and peanuts and chocolate, a big jar of Nutella, two bags worth of junk food, and then, finally, the salt. 

“They were having a sale”, she explained, when Frank questioned her purchases. “And I ran out of Oreos yesterday, but then I saw the ice cream, and then I got you the sour cream chips you like, and then I think I blacked out, because suddenly I was paying for everything and there’s just so much junk in here.” 

They put the stuff away, and she opened the family size bag of sour cream chips she had supposedly gotten for him, and they snacked while he prepared dinner. 

“To be fair”, she said, feeding him chips while he cut up burger buns in half. “At least I had the sense of getting the veggie patties.”

“Which we could make ourselves, you know”, Frank replied. “We don’t actually know what goes in these.”

They ate their store bought veggie burgers with a side of chips dipped in guacamole, and she opened a pint of ice cream for dessert. 

“I can’t wait until this is over”, she said, lying on the couch, her feet on his lap. “I don’t eat like this usually, this is just boredom, or cabin fever, or something.”

“You stress eat?”

“Yeah”, she said, nodding. “I used to stress drink, but I figured I’d rather be fat than an alcoholic.”

Frank chuckled, squeezing her foot, feeling entirely too full for comfort. 

“You wanna run with me in the morning?” he offered. 

“No, thanks. I’m sure I can’t keep up with you and your Marine trained self.”

Turned out she could. 

The next morning, she went running with him for the first time, and he thought he would have to go slow to avoid out running her, but he didn’t. They didn’t race, or anything, and he let her set the pace, and it was good enough for him.

The streets were empty and damp from the rain that had fallen all the previous afternoon and through the night, and their footsteps echoed.

They walked to the bakery a little before seven, to get their usual coffee before getting Lady for her morning walk. 

“Sir, I’m sorry”, was saying Lea from the bakery when they got there. “I can’t let you in without a mask.”

There was a man standing at the door, trying to get in. 

“This is ridiculous”, he said, full of self importance, louder than it was necessary. “I just want to have breakfast, how am I supposed to eat with a mask?”

“We’re only doing take away at the moment”, Lea explained, looking exasperated. 

“Honestly. What a joke. Let me speak to the-”

“Do you have a death wish, buddy?” Frank asked, getting close to the door. 

The man stopped, and looked at Frank. “Excuse me?”

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic, if you haven’t noticed. The lady told you she can’t let you in without the mask, what the hell is your problem?”

Taken off guard, the man blinked, and shifted on his feet. He opened his mouth, clearly to try and argue, but Frank cut him off. 

“If you’re ok with dying, that’s fine by me, I don’t really give a shit. But these people are working, it’s seven in the goddamn morning, so try to have some decency and wear the fucking mask, how about that?”

Karen wanted to laugh, because Frank didn’t threaten the guy, like she thought he would, he didn’t insinuate that he could hurt him, or anything, but he was so good at the mean face, he could make himself look so dangerous, that all the man did was huff, throw Lea and Frank a dirty look and walk away from the bakery. 

“Thanks, Frank”, said Lea, visibly relaxing. “Seriously. Some people. The usual?”

They walked home with their order, and Lady was waiting for them at the door when they arrived, Pooka waking up just as they walked in. 

“Does the Punisher want to shower before his breakfast?”

Karen almost laughed at the face he made at her. 

“Outta nowhere”, was his comment, and she chuckled, taking her socks off. 

“The face you made downstairs”, she explained. “Reminded me of that time.”

“I thought you’d rather forget it.”

“Not… Necessarily. Don't get me wrong, I much much rather things how they are now, but, you know…”

He raised his brows at her. 

“Well, I did fall for you while you were… Punishing people.”

It was his turn to chuckle, and he shook his head. 

“You’re a trouble magnet, that’s what you are.”

“You love it”, she said, making her way to the bathroom for her shower, and if Lady wasn’t sitting there, eagerly waiting for him to take her on her morning walk, he would have followed Karen down the corridor.

.:.

When he came back from the walk, she was waiting for him, reading a book, swinging in his hammock at the fire escape. 

“You don’t know how hard it was not opening a can of Pringles”, she said when he joined her. 

“Maybe later”, he said, putting his arm around her while she adjusted the blanket over their legs. “It’s too early for fried potatoes.”

“Maybe. But what even is time anymore?”

“Still. You don’t just eat chips this early on a Wednesday.”

“Frank. It’s Thursday.”

“What? No it’s not.”

“It is!”

They argued for a few minutes over what day of the week it was until Frank stretched his arm to reach the phone he had left at the windowsill. 

Saturday. 


	10. She

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will he ever understand how he got her?

Karen, Frank come to the conclusion, is a feast. 

He learned that pretty soon. Suspected it, days after he met her. He was surprised to find himself thinking about her sometimes during his brief stunt in prison.

She was always plural, since the beginning. Her voice could be sweet, and she could smile at things he said about his children, all blonde hair and blue eyes, the figure of softness, a poster girl for fragility. And then, one second later, those same blue eyes would shoot daggers, her manicured fingers would pull the trigger with conviction, righteous aim, she would break into the house of a convicted murderer who had fired multiple shots in her direction. 

Karen was stronger than him, he admitted it, she was stronger than all the men he had met, you have to be the toughest motherfucker in the world to go through what she did and not turn into him, into a bitter shallow of a human being. She didn’t need anyone to do what she had done for him, she didn’t need anyone to rescue her, Karen picked herself up off the floor, from rock bottom, and rose higher than them all. 

And rescue him she did. Like he had done with Lady, Karen picked him off the street, bruised and traumatized, she rescued him and fought, fought for him, fought him, fought the world to bring him back, to make him whole again, to keep him. 

And there he was. After all that shit, after losing his babies, after losing the only woman he had ever come close to loving, after knowing, deep in his bones, that he was nothing but a dead man walking, that there was nothing left for him in the world if not rid it of the people that took his heart right out of his chest and shot it dead in a park. There he was, potty training a baby pitbull, house training a former fight dog, organizing the spice rack in a tiny kitchen in the middle of New York City, swinging in a hammock in a fire escape, swapping Harry Potter stories with the neighbors’ kid, sorting laundry, pulling blonde hair strands from his shirts, watching as Karen did her nails on the coffee table (green nail polish, because he had mentioned it was Frankie’s favorite color, and she remembered that is was supposed to be his birthday, asked if he minded.

“He would find it funny”, he said, after shaking his head. “Lisa painted his nails once, made a mess of Maria’s things, it was a whole situation”).

And it was all because of her. Because of Karen, who saved his life in so many ways, so many times, who gave herself to him so fully, so openly, so honestly, who sometimes would fall asleep on the couch, hugging a pillow to her, her shirt riding high on her waist, leaving her bottom exposed to him, covered in flimsy underwear, her hair spread around her head, tumbling over, tips almost touching the floor, socks on her feet. 

And oh, Lord, he loved her. Loved her like he didn’t think he would be able to love anymore. 

Different than the love he felt for Maria. That had been new, his first time ever loving someone so fiercely, their future a promise he never questioned, it was pure, dare he say innocent. Maria showed him everything that was beautiful in the world, she gave him his children, she taught him how to love. 

Karen found him in the dark, she found him broken, torn apart beyond repair, but still she picked up the pieces, helped put him back together, held his hand through the pain, she bled and cried for him, with him, the love he felt for her was no less worthy, it saved his life. 

And he would protect it. With his life if he had to, enough of running.

“Enough, now”, he said against her hair, and she stirred, turning around in her afternoon nap, cracking an eye open to look at him. 

“What?” 

“D’you wanna go to bed?” he said instead of voicing his musing.

“Hmm. No”, she sighed, turning to face him, eyes remaining closed. “I want to stay here”, she decided, settling more comfortably, already falling back asleep. 

Frank sat on the floor in front of the couch, lifted his hand and moved some of her hair off her face.

“Me too.”

.:.

She sat on the couch with Lady one afternoon, a blanket around both of them, and watched some romantic movie on TV.

“This is in London”, she told Lady, who looked up at her with interest. “It’s very far away, across the ocean. Remember when I showed you the ocean?”

By the time the movie was ending, she was lying on the couch again, on her stomach, her shirt again riding up, leaving her bottom exposed, a feast for his eyes. 

Hugh Grant was making a speech in front of a crowd, and Julia Roberts was sitting there listening, Karen was watching, and didn’t see when Frank walked behind the couch, bent and bit down on the flesh of her ass.

“Ouch!” She complained, turning around, looking at him while he placed a kiss on the same spot, to soothe the sting. “Frank!”

“Sorry”, he said, moving towards her face, placing a kiss on her lips this time. “You were kinda asking for it.”

“Oh, sure”, she said, a slight smirk, moving back towards her movie. “Blame the victim.”

She lied back down, and Frank moved his hand to turn her face to his, for another kiss. She blinked at him when he let go of her. 

“You’re beautiful”, was his explanation.

She smiled, and turned to lie on her back, to better look at him. 

“I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to bring her some Oreos”, and a look of utter innocence and manipulation. 

Chuckling, he squeezed her ankle and moved towards the kitchen, to get said Oreos. 

He would give her the world, if she asked him. 


	11. Thirsty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank gets a haircut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an homage to Jon's look, from The Walking Dead, from that scene when we realized he was losing his marbles. 
> 
> Who else is a fan of that look?

It was a gloomy Saturday morning when Frank commented that he needed a haircut. 

He had just come back from his run, and was inspecting his own image on the microwave door. Karen was getting ready to take Lady for a walk.

“We might be a while”, she said, putting her hair up in a bun. “I’ll stop by the store to pick up some dog food, we’re running pretty low.”

And she did take her time, walking around the empty streets, sitting on a bench by the water, taking some pictures of Lady looking pretty, stopping to appreciate this little time outside. 

When she got back, it was a while before she actually went fully inside: leaving her shoes outside at the door, she first went through the routine of cleaning Lady’s paws, disinfected the bag of dog food before putting it away, took her mask off and hand washed it in the kitchen sink, leaving it to soak for a bit. 

Lady and Pooka were playing on the floor and Karen was in her underwear, making her way to the bathroom, when she realized Frank was in there. 

“Hey”, she greeted from the corridor, before getting to the door. 

“Hey”, he replied, voice low, relaxed. 

“I got the dog food, but they were out of-“

Karen stopped, mid sentence, mid step.

Frank was standing in front of the sink, shirtless, cleaning up after giving himself the haircut he said he needed, and she found herself staring. 

Shirtless Frank was anything but new to her, and she had seen him with many different hairstyles.

But there was something about that particular scene.

Maybe it was the light. Maybe it was the fact that it was gloomy and rainy outside, and the bathroom light, combined with the warmth of the apartment, created this cozy, lazy, indulgent feeling, or perhaps it was just Frank, and sometimes she would just be hit in the face in how, well, hot, he actually was.

He had shaved his hair off. So short he was practically - effectively - bald. His face was also clean shaven. His sweatpants rode low on his hips, and again, that light, that simple over-the-mirror low intensity light bulb, created shadows over him that made him look so… Appetizing. 

She kept staring, eyes running on the dips and swells of his chest, the tightness of his muscles, the flexing of his arms as he moved to clean the sink, the curve of his neck, and the surprising lack of hair on his head. 

Karen started and Frank noticed.

“What?” He asked, lifting a hand to his head to rub on it, and Karen’s eyes went to his bicep, noticing how the muscles moved, and she felt her toes curling. “You don’t like it?”

She blinked, surprised, and shook her head, smiling. 

“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” She took a step inside the bathroom, the tiles cold under her feet. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”

His hair had been getting a little out of control, lately, reminding her of when he had resurfaced for the first time, ambushing her in the street, the most dramatic way he could find of “saying hello” - actually asking for a favor. When he said he needed a haircut, she thought he meant the trim he usually got, and she liked it, was used to seeing him like that. She never expected this radical change, and it did suit him - a whole lot - but she was caught off guard. 

Karen spent so much time staring at him that Frank caught on.

“Did I miss a spot?” He asked, somewhat sarcastically, running his own eyes over her, standing there in nothing but her underwear, and she shook her head, lips curving in a little smile again, taking a step further towards him. 

“No, I don’t think you did…” 

Inches from him, she lifted her right hand to run it up his neck, around his ear, exploring this new style she had never seen on him - maybe a picture or two, but never face to face. Her left hand stopped on his chest, fingertips running the expanse of his collarbone, delicately, her toes wiggling lazily, and his smirk made her blush a little.

“You like it, then?” 

Karen nodded, smiling, and Frank dipped his face a bit, catching her lips on his in a slow, lingering peck, his own hands lifting, teasing the waistband of her underwear, the other one mapping the location of the clasp of her bra. 

“It’s reminding me a bit of… I don’t know, the time when you were this…” she started, practically melting right there in front of him. 

“What?”

Eyes running around his face, she shook her head, still taking him in.

“This dangerous man, you know?” He lifted his eyebrows. “The positively very bad guy I should stay away from.”

“Hmm. Great job with that, by the way”, he said, smirk back in place, hand squeezing her waist, and she smiled again, running that hand around his shoulders, now, the other one still feeling around his abdomen, turning her head to the side to allow him to place a kiss on her neck, closing her eyes at the feeling of his hands, which grew a tad impatient, squeezing. 

“I don’t think anyone can blame me, really. What was a girl to do, when you kept coming to my rescue every chance you got?” 

“A girl should thank me and move on with her life.”

“Hmm, we are not having this conversation again”, she decided, tossing her head back when he moved to run his lips on more of her neck, hands full of her, now, pressing her to his chest. 

Catching his mouth on hers, she kissed him, deep and slow, full of that familiar hunger that started to flare from deep inside her, hands running over his back, his arms, up his neck, exploring, feeling warm, feeling melty, she was always putty in his hands. 

“Oh no”, she said against his mouth, and her voice came out breathy and slow. “You shouldn’t kiss me.”

“Why the fuck not?” 

Karen turned inside his arms, and he immediately hugged her to him, dropping his mouth to that’s spot under her ear, and she looked at them in the mirror above the sink, pressed together, skin to skin, his strong arm around her torso.

“I haven’t showered after coming back from Lady’s walk. I could have the virus on me.”

His other hand rose and grabbed her jaw, sweetly and firmly angling her face to his, and he kissed her again, and her knees nearly buckled from the intensity of it. 

And then he let go of her, turned her to face him, and he looked so dangerous just then, looking at her like that, like he was about to consume her, like she was prey, she loved it, loved it, loved it, shivered all over when he pushed her, hand on her stomach, making her step back towards the shower, stepping with her, closing the shower curtain behind them, kissing her under the spray of water, peeling underwear and bra off her, letting her take his quickly soaked sweatpants off him, pinning her against cold tiles, maneuvering her any way he wanted, making her bite down hard on her own lower lip, the water was cold before they were ready to step out of the shower. 

And Karen was lazy for hours and hours after that, a bit sore from their shower, she felt that high for the rest of the day. 

“Stay here with me”, she asked him, borderline whining, from under the covers of the bed when he started to walk out towards the living room.

“I’ll just feed ‘em”, he said, that raspy quality of his voice making her want to wrap herself around him all over again. “And then I’m all yours.”

She heard him filling the puppies bowls with food and refreshing their water, and then he was walking back in, looking all big and brute and strong and perfect. 

“Gotta watch those eyes, Kare”, he said, almost in a warning, and Karen reached for him, sat up to kiss him when he knelt on the bed and pulled him on top of her, hands roaming, moaning when he squeezed the flesh of her hip just hard enough, like he knew she liked it.

“If I knew a haircut would have this effect on you”, he said, moving to get himself under the covers with her. “I’d have done it sooner.”

She enjoyed his attentions, like she always did. Especially when he acted like this, with a little bit more force, his touch a tad heavier than usual, Karen enjoyed that immensely, and did her best to show it to him: he liked it when she got vocal, and so she did, just to have him shushing her, telling her to be quiet, even if he didn’t mean that at all. 

And he left her feeling good, good enough that she felt like jello the rest of the day. 

“Hey”, he said, hours later, running his fingers through her hair, her head resting on his legs while they lounged on the couch. “Could you make some of that brownie of yours?”

“Yes”, she said - breathed, more like it -, moving to sit up, kissing him once, twice, three times. “I’d say yes to anything you asked right about now.”

Frank smiled. “Dangerous thing to promise.”

“It’s true, though”.

She got up, making her way to the kitchen, Pooka running after her to try and bite her sock out of her foot, Lady remaining behind on her spot by the couch, enjoying Frank’s scratches on her ear. 

Karen made him his brownie, lost her sock to Pooka while she mixed the batter, watched as Frank sat on the floor, teaching the puppy how to sit and stay and lie down. 

(Lady, staying very true to her name, learned all the tricks and commands extremely quick, and needed less lessons than her baby.)

When her timer pinged, Karen took the brownie out of the oven, cut it up into squares and took it to the living room, in it’s own baking pan.

“Hmm”, Frank said when she gave him a warm piece. “So good. Thanks, sweetheart.”

“You’re very welcome”, she said, kissing him again, sitting back on the couch, looking for the remote.

She was wearing a big long sleeved T shirt. It was complete with a hoodie, but it was of a very light, flimsy material, it would not warm her on a truly cold day. She wore it with loose pajama shorts and socks, and, some twenty minutes into her tv show, Frank turned to get another piece of brownie, and put his open hand on her thigh, sliding it until he was grabbing her ass, and squeezed, making her wince, and then dropped his face to bite on flesh, like he loved to do. 

“Ow”, she said, not serious at all, making a face, moving to make room for him by her side on the couch, gasping when he dipped his hand under her shorts.

.:.

Frank slept on his stomach, arm flung around her, face on the crook of her neck, while she watched the show he had interrupted earlier. They had retreated back to bed, and she was propped against a thousand pillows - she had bought more after the lockdown, figuring that if they were going to spend so much time inside, they might as well be comfortable - her leg curled against one of his own, her fingertips running up and down his back, gently, just a feather of a caress. 

Looking down at him, she wondered if it actually was his haircut that had put her in such a mood, because it was no news to her how handsome he was, how in shape he was, how attracted she was to him, but they had been together for months and months, now, and it had been a while since she had felt this… Thirsty.

Someone shouted, on TV, and there was a bang, screams, and Karen quickly grasped the remote, lowering the volume, but Frank stirred, groaning, his hand squeezing her again, settling more comfortably against her, and, again, she watched the muscles working under his skin. 

And that settled it, she thought. Living with a guy like Frank, perpetual thirst was pretty much part of the deal.


	12. comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four months of comfortable clothes can spoil a woman

It got to a point where she just didn’t bother with underwear anymore. 

Karen stopped wearing bras on day one. Sometimes she would make an effort with her “lounging around doing nothing” outfits, putting on a cute pair of shorts and a nice T shirt instead of sweatpants, pajamas and over large hoodies, but the bras stayed in the drawer. 

The sports bras were the only exception, she would wear them to work out, be it in the living room or the scarce trips outside - and even then, only sometimes, if her shirt was too thin, or kinda see through.

It would be very nice if she could just copy Frank and simply not wear a shirt on the hotter days, but, alas, it was not possible. When she was absolutely not feeling like it, she would simply wear something more snug to provide some sort of support and choose a low impact exercise routine, but, as a rule, sport bras stayed on rotation. 

And then, she stopped wearing underwear altogether. 

There was, she figured, absolutely no need for them. She was inside all day, everyday, her only companion being Frank, who had seen everything there was to see, and the dogs, and they couldn’t care less. 

And it was very, very nice. 

Her pajamas were all loose, comfortable, and, unlike normal times, they would not stay on only at night. More and more, she would only change out of one pair to immediately put on another one after her shower. 

She had shorts and sweatpants she wore when she changed out of the PJs, comfortable dresses and cute rompers, and they also did not require underwear. 

Karen never said all of this out loud, it was just a decision she made organically, and, if Frank noticed, he didn’t say anything. 

But he got the habit of resting his hand on her butt whenever they sat together on the couch and he put his arm around her, or when they lied in bed, either to sleep or just because, his hand would rest on the curve of her hip, sometimes caressing, sometimes with drumming fingers, when he was restless, sometimes squeezing a bit. 

And she was, absolutely, not complaining.

Her next decision, and mission, was to make all of her comfortable clothes even more comfortable. One particular pair of high waisted sweatpants was the sacrificial item, and Karen sat on the floor one day, scissors in hand, examining the waist of the garment. 

“Shit”, she breathed after a few minutes. 

“What?” asked Frank, not really knowing what she was doing, distracted with his Hunger Games book, a loan from Leilani.

“It’s sewn in”, Karen explained. “Will I ruin this if I just take the stitches out?”

Frank looked away from the book and towards her, sitting on the floor. 

“You gonna wear it if you don’t?”

“No”, she said after some consideration. 

“Then have at it.”

It took a while, and the pants definitely weren’t the same after she was done with them. What was once a high waisted loose pair of gray sweatpants were now like pajamas, without any sort of form fitting feature, or anything that would keep it on in case she forgot to tie it. Trying it on, Karen looked at herself in the mirror. 

“Well. I can’t wear it outside ever again, but this is much much better.”

After that, every short that squeezed her just a little more than she deemed necessary, every pair of sweatpants that had an elastic in its waist, any sports bra that came with a removable padding, it was all altered, to become the most comfortable it could be. She did ruin a pair or two, but mostly, she did a good enough job with the rest.

And then, when there was nothing she could do to her own clothes anymore, Karen started wearing his. 

First, hoodies. Large enough to cover her hands, shoulders that stopped almost at her elbows, she would prance around the house in them, zipped all the way up or simply thrown on over a simple t shirt and shorts.

Then, shirts. Frank would look for something, just to find that Karen had been faster, and fished it out of his drawer first, and was wearing them over her altered sweatpants - even better, over nothing.

His sweatpants, but only once, because they were way too large on the waist, and she had to keep pulling them up. 

“Hold up”, he said one night, when she got up from the couch to get the takeout dinner they had ordered. Karen looked at him, and he pulled the hem of her hoodie to make her come closer, and then zipped her up, because the shirt she was wearing underneath it was flimsy, light colored, and the outside hallway light was way too bright, transparency was a tricky thing, and there was no bra in sight. 

Karen smirked, shaking her head. 

“Men.”

“No, not ‘men’”, Frank argued, without any heat. “Just don’t think you should give the poor guy a nosebleed, is all.”

.:. 

She dressed up to take Pookah to the vet, for his shots. 

Well, not as much “dressed up” but “dressed normal”, with items she would not wear inside, clothes that were meant for going outside of the apartment. 

Including underwear. 

Frank stayed behind, took Lady for her walk and bathed her once they were home again. He had just finished preparing lunch when Karen and Pookah came back. 

“Hey”, he greeted, from the stove, while she walked in. “How was it?”

“All good”, she said, closing the door behind her, shedding her coat. “He’s fine, the doc says he’s very healthy.”

“That’s good”, he said, lowering the heat of the stove. 

“Let’s go, baby”, she said to Pookah, maneuvering him on her arms to avoid putting him on the floor. “Bath time.”

The puppy was getting big enough that he didn’t fit in the sink anymore, where he would take his baths before. Now, he used the bathtub, just like everyone else.

“Ugh!” Frank heard from the kitchen, as Karen shed her clothes in the bathroom, followed by huffs and puffs. 

“You ok in there?”

“Yeah.”

Extinguishing the flames, Frank put the lids on the pots, to keep the food warm, and walked to the bathroom. 

He found Pookah sitting in the empty bathtub, playing with the little rubber duck they had gotten for him, while Karen took her clothes off, her hair already back down from the bun she had put it to go out. 

“Honestly”, she said, standing back up after lowering her jeans down her legs, hands going to her own back, to unhook her bra, sighing in relief when it came off. “I don’t think I can get used to wearing these anymore.”

She stepped off her underwear and balled all the clothes up to throw them in the hamper, stepping into the bathtub with Pookah and turning the shower on. 

Frank stood there watching as she let the water fall on her, soaking her hair, the heat tingeing her skin red, the dog playing around with the toy and the water, waiting for his turn to be bathed. 

They talked while she filled the tub with enough water for the dog’s bath, and, when she was done, took Pookah in a towel, to dry him while she finished her own shower.

He was trying to brush the dog, dodging him while he tried to bite the brush, when Karen emerged from the shower, towel wrapped around her hair, and walked to the wardrobe. 

“Oh, so much better”, she sighed, throwing on one of Frank’s shirts herself, on top of bare skin. “Four months of wearing comfortable clothes only, I don’t think I’ll want anything squeezing me ever again.”

“Except for me”, Frank said, looking at her, releasing Pookah. 

“Except for you.” 


End file.
